The 2013 Ramazzini Award will be conferred upon John Froines (USA) for his outstanding career in occupational and environmental health research and advocacy, especially his pioneering work to develop the federal occupational lead and cotton dust exposure standards in the United States and his work in California that led to the recognition of diesel exhaust as a significant toxic air contaminant, preserving the health and the lives of millions. download

Special Recognition given to Kathleen Ruff (Canada), Founder of RightOnCanada & Senior Advisor to the Rideau Institute for her outstanding leadership in the international effort to ban the ongoing use of asbestos.

Recent global economic changes are having negative effects on occupational and environmental health. For example, increased world metal prices have led to inappropriate artisanal mining and smelting in developing countries that, in turn, have resulted in excessive worker and community exposures. Movement of production and toxic waste to lesser-developed countries, i.e. those with cheaper labor and weaker environmental and occupational health and safety regulations, from developed countries has resulted in problems in both. Increased numbers of low-wage workers in developing countries have unhealthy and unsafe working and living conditions while depleted production sites, unemployment and an unmitigated legacy of pollution are left behind in the developed countries. Workplace and environmental disasters have especially affected vulnerable women, children and immigrant workers.
Case studies are presented to illustrate some of these problems including: an environmental disaster in Nigeria with the death of children from lead contamination from artisanal gold mining and the subsequent public health response; the workplace fatalities in Bangladesh with the collapse of the Rana Plaza and the series of fatal factory fires; the movement of electronic waste to developing countries from developed countries; the multiple problems of a major steel plant in Italy; and the impact of development in Mongolia.